Most of what you eat is sausages. I mean, if we’re going to get literal about it. Sausage derives from the Latin salsicus, which means “seasoned with salt”. You might think of a sausage as a simple thing, but on this reading it is everything and nothing, a Borgesian meta-concept that retreats as you approach it.

From another perspective, a sausage is an offal-filled intestine, or the macerated parts of an electrocuted or asphyxiated pig or other animal – generally parts that you wouldn’t knowingly eat – mixed with other ingredients that, in isolation, you might consider inedible. For some reason, it is seldom marketed as such.

But to the legislators of the EU, a sausage can now have only one meaning: a cylindrical object containing meat. Never mind that cylindrical objects containing no meat have been marketed under names such as “Glamorgan sausage” (selsig Morgannwg) for at least 150 years. Never mind that even Germans once felt the need to call animal sausages mettwurst, to distinguish them from other kinds. Never mind that almost everyone knows what “veggie sausage”, “vegan sausage” or “plant-based sausage” mean. A recent survey of 20,000 Dutch people found that 96% are not confused by such terms, which is probably a higher percentage than those who can readily distinguish left from right. The consumer must at all costs be protected from an imaginary threat.

Last thread here

Welcome to this week’s casual kōrero thread!

This post will be pinned in this community so you can always find it, and will stay for about a week until replaced by the next one.

It’s for talking about anything that might not justify a full post. For example:

• Something interesting that happened to you
• Something humourous that happened to you
• Something frustrating that happened to you
• A quick question
• A request for recommendations
• Pictures of your pet
• A picture of a cloud that kind of looks like an elephant
• Anything else, there are no rules (except the rule)

So how’s it going?

Technicians working on a firewall upgrade made at least ten mistakes, contributing to two deaths, according to a report on a September incident that saw Australian telco Optus unable to route calls to emergency services.

Background

I have been quite fascinated by Europe's continental suicide in the face of the failure of Project Ukraine and the fracturing of the "transatlantic understanding".

I think Europe still has time to choose strategic autonomy:

• Rapprochement with Russia to restore their energy competitiveness.
• Rapprochement with China to restore their global trade and industrial competitiveness.
• Seek out global markets to blunt the Trump tariffs.
• Pressure Ukraine to hasten their inevitable capitulation before they loose EVEN MORE LAND AND SOLDIERS.

Of course as we all know, the Western media has the complete opposite narrative, a jumble something like "Russia has lost 10 bajillion soldiers and they don't actually have military equipment at all and also advancing on the battlefield counts as losing if it wasn't as fast as we ourselves predicted it would be."

Content for the tribunal:

Mod actions: removed comments, banned from community

Responsible mod: Unknown to me

Link to First Comment (now removed)

First comment with better formatting:

1. This war started in 2008 at the Bucharest NATO summit, when the US announced its intention to expand NATO into Ukraine and Georgia. EVEN EUROPEAN LEADERS like Merkel and Sarkozy noted AT THE TIME that the Russians would view NATO expansion into these countries as tantamount to a declaration of war. Over the next 14 years the West did a "color revolution", the Banderites did an ethnic cleansing campaign in the Donbass, and the West sabotaged and undermined THREE DIFFERENT PEACE AGREEMENTS before the Russians' famous patience finally expired in 2022.
2. Ukraine doesn't need money to win the war, it needs TRAINED INFANTRY and to a lesser extent weapons. MOREOVER, anyone who thinks this money will last Ukraine even a whole year is delusional. The annual BASELINE burn rate of the Ukraine regime is 150B+ annually, and tax receipts are essentially nonexistent.
3. They must be REALLY DESPERATE to risk the CREDIBILITY OF THE ENTIRE EUROPEAN FINANCIAL SYSTEM on this foolish gambit. They are breaking the very "Laws of Capital" that the West itself wrote. The Europeans seem determined to beat the Americans in a race to economic decline and collapse.

Tell me again about the "moral case" for stealing sovereign assets to prop up a stunningly corrupt regime in terminal collapse?

Looking forward to the tortured logic justifying my ban.

My Commentary

I know enough to know that they really don't like contrary narratives about Russia/Ukraine in any of the Euro-comms so I wrote my comments very carefully.

Can you, the esteemed commenters of YPTB, spot the misinformation or rage bait? Perhaps I am just blind to it in my own content. If present, did I "ragebait first" or did the other commenter?

Reminder that "Russia says this, therefore it is misinformation" is not a cogent argument or evidence.

Hello Plex / Home Assistant community!

I used to post regularly with Plex related projects to Reddit but since leaving I figured I'd try sharing my latest project here instead

My latest project, in an effort to decouple my smarthome setup from Alexa, is to recreate the functionality provided by the Plex Alexa skill so I can play things to my various Plex clients with voice commands in Home Assistant (plus I assume like all things I enjoy Plex will eventually EOL this anyway)

I mostly made this for my own personal usage initially but decided to make it into a blueprint and share

https://github.com/mdhiggins/PlexVoiceAssistant

I have a few other Plex/*arr related projects if you check out my Github

Hope others find value in this as well but its working nicely in my home setup

Developer @psyc@lemmy.world

title

Carmakers have known for decades that battery recycling was poisoning people abroad. Nigeria’s crackdown is an effort to catalog the damage.

Experts decry ‘neocolonialist’ Guinea-Bissau study after Trump administration changed advice for US babies

The Trump administration has indicated that it will fund a $1.6m study on hepatitis B vaccination of newborns in the west African country of Guinea-Bissau, where nearly one in five adults live with the virus – a move that researchers call “highly unethical” and “extremely risky”.

The news follows an official change in recommendations on hepatitis B vaccines at birth from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which called the shots an “individual” decision, despite decades of safe and effective vaccination and no evidence of harm. It is part of sweeping changes to childhood immunizations by the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, which have global repercussions – including cutting funding for programs that bring vaccines to countries around the world.

“He has a fixed, immutable belief that vaccines cause harm,” said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “He will do everything he can to try and prove that.”

He accused the government of trying to take the “easy route” of “reaching into Poles’ pockets”.

This is pure populism. The government isn't doing this because they are evil and want to ruin the life of the ordinary Polish family. hey are doing this because alcohol and sugary drinks have devastating consequences on the healthcare system:

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2023-06-09-alcohol-consumption-increases-risks-over-60-diseases

https://continentalhospitals.com/blog/can-soft-drinks-increase-your-risk-of-type-2-diabetes/

When Polish people get sick for diseases that could have been easily avoided, they will need medical appointments, surgeries, medications.

Who is going to pay for that ? Not Coca-Cola. Not Pepsi.

After the controversial news shared earlier this week by Mozilla’s new CEO that Firefox will evolve into “a modern AI browser,” the company now revealed it is working on an AI kill switch for the open-source web browser.

On Tuesday, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo was named the new CEO of Mozilla Corporation, the company behind the beloved Firefox web browser used by almost all GNU/Linux distributions as the default browser.

In his message as new CEO, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo stated that Firefox will grow from a browser into a broader ecosystem of trusted software while remaining the company’s anchor, and that Firefox will evolve into a modern AI browser and support a portfolio of new and trusted software additions.

What was not made clear is that Firefox will also ship with an AI kill switch that will let users completely disable all the AI features that are included in Firefox. Mozilla shared this important update earlier today to make it clear to everyone that Firefox will still be a trusted web browser.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/40523135

Trade war with Canada has contributed to a significant decline in U.S. liquor sales

Jim Beam, one of the largest makers of American whiskey globally, is shutting down bourbon production at one of its Kentucky distilleries for a year.

The move comes amid Donald Trump’s trade war with Canada, which has contributed to a significant decline in U.S. liquor sales after the country ushered in a boycott of American booze, and as more young adults are cutting back on drinking.

Jim Beam, owned by Suntory Global Spirits, is one of Kentucky’s biggest bourbon producers.

The Bluegrass state’s $9 billion whiskey bourbon industry has been struggling to manage its abundant supply of liquor against the drop in demand.

Several of Waymo's autonomous vehicles were seen stuck in the middle of San Francisco streets following a significant power outage that took out the city's traffic lights. Waymo responded to the power outage by suspending its ride-hailing services in the city, but images and videos on social media showed the self-driving taxis stopped at intersections with hazard lights on.

"We have temporarily suspended our ride-hailing services in the San Francisco Bay Area due to the widespread power outage," Suzanne Philion, a spokesperson for Waymo, told Engadget in an email. "Our teams are working diligently and in close coordination with city officials, and we are hopeful to bring our services back online soon."

Humphrey Bogart

Just curious...

Are there people here who have an ergonomic keyboard (e.g. at work), but also use a laptop often that does usually not have an ergonomic keyboard?

Does it work? Does it feed good? Or will it be harder for me to hit the keys when switching the device between work and private time?

Official indicates vessel is subject to sanctions after Trump’s ‘blockade’ on sanctioned tankers in and out of Venezuela

US Coast Guard officials said on Sunday that they are tracking an oil tanker in international waters close to Venezuela, according to Reuters, marking the second such action over the weekend – and the third within the past week.

One official indicated that the tanker is subject to sanctions. The officials, who requested anonymity, did not disclose the precise location of the pursuit.

Donald Trump had recently declared a “blockade” targeting all sanctioned oil tankers traveling into or out of Venezuela.

The US president’s campaign to increase pressure on authoritarian Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has involved a strengthened American military presence in the region, along with more than two dozen military strikes against vessels in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea near the South American country. Those attacks have resulted in at least 100 deaths.